A lovely statue of St. Maron carved by a Spaniard in Italy, at Pietrasanta. A great honor to be present at the unveiling and blessing of this statue along with hundreds of Maronite pilgrims from Lebanon and across the globe. The blessing, oddly, was pronounced by the Holy Father in Italian (it would have been more fitting in Latin).

Not every day you see a living Council Father sing Pontifical High Mass, let alone a patriarch or a priest who has been bishop for 50 years.

As Catholics we hold that there have been only 21 sacred and holy, oecumenical and general Synods (Councils).

On Wednesday, February 23 His Eminent Beatitude the Lord Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and of all the East, in the presence of the president of Lebanon and countless faithful from Lebanon and the diaspora, celebrated Divine Liturgy according to the Antiochene Syriac Maronite rite at the altar of the Chair of the Vatican Basilica in celebration of the closing of the Jubilee Year in celebration of the 1,600 anniversary of the dies natalis (death) of their founder, St. Maron.

The words of consecration were chanted in Syriac, the spoken languge of Christ.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

This sweet young lady seeen today in the Vatican is a Syriac Christian.

They are the last humans on the planet earth who still speak the spoken language of Christ, Syriac (Aramaic).

A persecuted people, these Orthodox Christians do not speak or understand Arabic. They fled the sword of Islam into Turkey and in recent years have fled still further (after Ottoman genocide) to peaceful places such as Sweden, Germany, Austria and the United States.